Monthly Archives: April 2009

Following on from Matthew Williamson’s H&M collection that was launched last week, he also created a summer collection that will be available from the 14th of May. This collection will have a wider distribution and a bigger stock. The collection will be in store longer than any H&M designer collaboration before. Added to this, Williamson has also designed a menswear range for the first time in his career.

“This summer collection really embraces the holiday lifestyle. The silhouette is softened with the addition of long flowing dresses, smocks and kaftans in weightless fabric, and the peacock palette is warmed by accents of red and pink”, says Williamson.

Tonight I’ve watched the movie “Don Juan ou Si Don Juan Était une Femme'” (1973), directed by Roger Vadim, with Brigitte Bardot as the female version of Don Juan. It’s save to say it’s not one of the highlights in her acting career. The movie is basically about Bardot having sex with different people. One of those people is actress Jane Birkin. The ironic thing about it is that at the time Birkin had a relationship with Bardot’s ex, Serge Gainsbourg. In 1969, Bardot and Gainsbourg recorded the duet “Je t’aime…moi non plus”. The song was originally written for Bardot. Because the song could hurt Bardot’s image, the song was never released (not until 1986) and Gainsbourg re-recorded it with Birkin.

Some quotes from Jane Birkin:

“I met Serge through taking a role in a French film called Slogan. To begin with, he didn’t like me because my French wasn’t very good and he’d been hoping that Marisa Berenson (Death in Venice, Cabaret) would get my role. Everybody told me he was a mad, bad, dangerous Russian, but after a dinner together I discovered he was very charming. He was still in love with Brigitte Bardot and I was still in love with John, but little by little we healed each other’s wounds. He was 20 years older than me, but looked much younger. He used to say he loved the ambiguity of my body, a girl that looked like a boy, and with that in mind he made me sing an octave higher.”

“Initially I didn’t want to sing ‘Je t’aime…’, but I was so jealous that I wouldn’t let another girl get inside a telephone booth with Serge and sing it with him. Serge said to me he was frightened of large breasts and loved my petite body, but I didn’t know whether to believe that because he had just been with Brigitte Bardot and she had a very different body to mine.”

“I later starred as Bardot’s lover in the film Don Juan. It’s a terrible movie, but I took it up for the charm of being in bed with Bardot. I can tell you that every portion of her body is absolutely perfect. I should know: I had a good look!”

“The film was directed by her ex-husband, Roger Vadim, who made her cry, saying she wasn’t as beautiful as she used to be. I’m sure that because people judged her solely on her looks and she was slagged off for getting older that it turned her into a crazy person who belongs to the National Front and only talks to animals. Serge was very sweet to her; he was a very forgiving man.”

Altough Bardot is my style icon numero uno, Birkin’s also a fashion icon, because of her laidback and casual looks, like wearing a wicker basket instead of a handbag, faded denim, “I don’t care”-hair, belted sweaters and overknee socks. And she’s also part of fashion history because Hermès named one of their bags after her.

The legendary Jerry Hall stars in Karl Lagerfeld’s shoot for the new Chanel accessories catalogue. The photographs are based on Colette’s post-war novel ‘Cheri’, which tells the story of the end of a six-year love affair between an older woman and a younger man, played by male model Baptiste Giabiconi.

“Oscar Wilde said; I like men who have a future, and women who have a past”, says Lagerfeld. “It is this whole idea of seduction that is summarised here that appeals to me. One of a very young man fascinated and attracted by what a woman does: her wardrobe, her perfume, her movements, her allure, etc.”

I really like it that designers are starting to use women of all ages for their campaigns. But the male model, well he looks very, very young, and very, very plastic. He makes it a bit creepy, I think.

It seems like Karl and Jerry will collaborate again soon. He’s shot another portrait of her for the cover of her autobiography, ‘Self Portrait’, coming out in October 2009. Can’t wait to read it!

The sun is shining outside, so time to think about what to wear to the beach. Agent Provocateur always has the most extraordinary lingerie and beachwear. These are the pictures of their latest swimwear ad campaign. I like the setting, very simular to the Roxy Music Stranded album with Jerry Hall on the cover. I also like the fish in the water.

The collection is very diverse, some is really cute retro fifties pin-up looking, but the fluorescent bathing suits are very “Albert Cuyp Markt” (sorry, I have no idea how to translate this in English….)

The lovely Zooey Deschanel is one of the faces of America’s Cotton Producers and Importers’s campaign “Cotton the Fabric of my Life” alongside country singer Miranda Lambert and singer Jazmine Sullivan. All three ladies shot a very cheesy commercial backed by a song they wrote that apparently had to include the line “the touch the feel, the fabric of our lives. The touch, the feel of cotton; fabric of my life”.

Zooey’s commercial is almost too painful to watch it weren’t for her charming style. I love the looks she picked for the commerical. It’s all very Zooey and therefor very fabulous!